Gilbert Ford grew up in a family of professional photographers in Jackson, Mississippi, and moved to New York to attend Pratt Institute. After graduating, he worked as a designer and illustrator for a giftware company, creating educational puzzles, games, stickers, stationery, and activity books for children, before setting out on his own. He currently lives and works in Brooklyn, NY where he has illustrated many New York Times best selling middle grade novels and also award winning picture books.

In 2015 he received his MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. He is the author/ illustrator of picture books The Marvelous Thing That Came From A Spring and How The Cookie Crumbled, both published by Atheneum.

He is also the illustrator for the gross science chapter books written by Anita Sanchez: ITCH:Everything You Didn’t Want to Know About What Makes You Scratch (pub Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2018) and is currently illustrating Rotten! Vultures, Beetles, and Slime: Nature’s Decomposers (pub HMH 2019)

His illustrations have been recognized by The Society of Illustrators, American Illustration Chosen,3×3, and The Society of Publication Designers. His toys won Parenting Choice and Openheimer awards. His books have been selected by The Junior Library Guild, The Society of Illustrators’ Original Art, Bank Street Cook Prize Honor, Orbis Pictus Honor, NSTA Best Stem Book, and others.